Goonhub
09-28-2022, 10:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-28-2022, 10:53 AM by Emrsnn. Edited 1 time in total.
Edit Reason: making my paragraph breaks pretty
)
This is all my own personal opinion and experience and I don't intend to present it as universal fact.
I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I agree yes, cliquing is absolutely something I experience and in the past have been guilty of, and yes, it's absolutely a problem.
I like to think I've been pretty vocal about it (mainly in the discord) that the reason I started avoiding reading the credits at round end is because I need to take away my ability to gravitate toward people I already know, an issue that I noticed I slowly developed without realizing it. I kept catching myself only approaching the same 3 or 4 people because I knew that they'd always be responsive and I wouldn't have a bad experience with them. My point being, even if you're forming one in response to being excluded from another, it's still a clique.
The majority of the RP community knows me just for my primary character, but I actually have five in total, the other four I do my best to not attribute to myself for the same reason. The issue is, it's much harder for me to have a round that doesn't feel- for lack of better words- empty when I'm not playing my primary character. (This could in part be attributed to my primary being in a faster paced role, but I think my point still stands.)
I have found that in situations where someone finds out I play a character, especially if it's several people at once in a well-meaning case of "yeah, I think Em plays ___" on discord, the way the character is reacted to in-game changes within the next round that I play them.
It would be lying to say that I don't benefit from or even enjoy the feeling that people treat me like I'm in some way "vetted", however the bottom line is that new players don't hold the privilege of having some well-known "main character" personality that they can retreat to when they're tired of being excluded.
Thank you, this is a really great point that I've never seen brought up before. I've definitely been guilty of this in the past- acting overly "realistically" to the goofier/more outrageous characters, (i.e. "slowly back away, this person is crazy and dangerous") which I generally was doing under the guise of "This is Classic behavior and we are on RP right now". In retrospect, I should have just written a book if I wanted to control the tone of the story so badly.
I think a good addendum to your point is a reminder that the Goonstation universe (cough cough Gooniverse cough) is inherently ridiculous. Yes, serious themes exist in it. People get murdered, you work in a corporate hellhole, etc, etc. But after you get murdered, it's just as possible to cut out you pancreas and turn it into a lightly-fried three-tier pancreas sandwich on white bread sandwich pie cake sandwich as it is to have a big somber hard-hitting funeral. Serious and goofy can be blended and it can and has been done really well.
In my opinion, this isn't a soap opera. It's a dark comedy.
I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I agree yes, cliquing is absolutely something I experience and in the past have been guilty of, and yes, it's absolutely a problem.
I like to think I've been pretty vocal about it (mainly in the discord) that the reason I started avoiding reading the credits at round end is because I need to take away my ability to gravitate toward people I already know, an issue that I noticed I slowly developed without realizing it. I kept catching myself only approaching the same 3 or 4 people because I knew that they'd always be responsive and I wouldn't have a bad experience with them. My point being, even if you're forming one in response to being excluded from another, it's still a clique.
The majority of the RP community knows me just for my primary character, but I actually have five in total, the other four I do my best to not attribute to myself for the same reason. The issue is, it's much harder for me to have a round that doesn't feel- for lack of better words- empty when I'm not playing my primary character. (This could in part be attributed to my primary being in a faster paced role, but I think my point still stands.)
I have found that in situations where someone finds out I play a character, especially if it's several people at once in a well-meaning case of "yeah, I think Em plays ___" on discord, the way the character is reacted to in-game changes within the next round that I play them.
It would be lying to say that I don't benefit from or even enjoy the feeling that people treat me like I'm in some way "vetted", however the bottom line is that new players don't hold the privilege of having some well-known "main character" personality that they can retreat to when they're tired of being excluded.
(09-28-2022, 04:51 AM)mab Wrote: I also get the impression that some players want a certain kind of roleplay, oriented toward dealing with certain kinds of "deeper" themes, HRP rolaplay, maybe, and just don't want to interact with those who do more lighthearted, goofy roleplay.
Thank you, this is a really great point that I've never seen brought up before. I've definitely been guilty of this in the past- acting overly "realistically" to the goofier/more outrageous characters, (i.e. "slowly back away, this person is crazy and dangerous") which I generally was doing under the guise of "This is Classic behavior and we are on RP right now". In retrospect, I should have just written a book if I wanted to control the tone of the story so badly.
I think a good addendum to your point is a reminder that the Goonstation universe (cough cough Gooniverse cough) is inherently ridiculous. Yes, serious themes exist in it. People get murdered, you work in a corporate hellhole, etc, etc. But after you get murdered, it's just as possible to cut out you pancreas and turn it into a lightly-fried three-tier pancreas sandwich on white bread sandwich pie cake sandwich as it is to have a big somber hard-hitting funeral. Serious and goofy can be blended and it can and has been done really well.
In my opinion, this isn't a soap opera. It's a dark comedy.